Friday, September 9, 2016

And Now For Something Completely Different

In the following, I fisk an essay by Jay Rosen about why Trump needs to be covered differently than 'other candidates'. Rosen's words are in italic, mine in bold. My 'regular' essays on the need for secession will resume, assuming this blog doesn't get banned.

Journalists commonly divide information from
persuasion, as when they separate the “news” from the “opinion” section, or “reporters”
from “columnists.” This is fine as far as it goes (and they get criticized
harshly when they don’t honor this norm), but the distinction won’t help much
in understanding why the 2016 campaign has been such an intellectual challenge
for the media.

Note how the idea that the media is
badly mistaken and dishonest about its actions is never raised. But if they did
do this, it would indeed be fine.

Everything that happens in election coverage is
premised on a kind of opinion: that our votes should be based on reliable
information about what the candidates intend to do if elected. Remove that
assumption and the edifice crashes. But this is exactly what the candidacy of
Donald Trump does. It upends the assumptions required for the traditional forms
of campaign journalism even to make sense.

Horseshit. THERE IS NO RELIABLE
INFORMATION POSSIBLE ON WHAT CANDIDATES WILL DO IF ELECTED. Frequently, they
don’t know themselves, because events take them by surprise. But even more
importantly, candidates are human beings, “who, being a
man, may err and, which is more, may lie.” (Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter XXXII).

What a candidate will do in office is opinion. Jay Rosen, author of this
piece, confuses reporter’s opinions with facts. I don’t know if he’s dishonest
here, or just wrong. But since it can’t
be done, that means his idea of how election coverage normally proceeds
is fantasy.

Take one of Trump’s most famous claims: that he
will build a wall on the border with Mexico and get Mexico to pay for it. Is
that a serious proposal? Should journalists review it as one? If they do
examine it as a policy idea, are they helping us achieve greater clarity about
the Trump candidacy (by taking a hard look at what he would do if elected), or
are they distorting the Trump phenomenon by treating a parody of policy
discussion, a kind of goof on the political class, as a genuine proposal?

Will Trump actually attempt to do that? Beats me.
If he tries, will he succeed? Don’t know. But Rosen assumes he does know that
it can’t be done, and is not a serious proposal.That is his opinion, and not fact.

“Mexico will pay for the wall” chips away at one
of the foundations of campaign coverage: that running for president is serious
business. If you take it seriously, you become the joke. If you don’t, then you
let him get away with an absurdity. The fact that there’s no right answer
should tell us something. Trump is crashing the system — violating norms and
assumptions that were previously taken for granted because so far, everyone who
had reached the point of consideration had obeyed them.

That bit about “norms” is a dead giveaway. A ‘norm’
is a moral rule, a prescription for conduct. But crime reporters cover those
who break moral rules all the time, and without endorsing the deviant behavior.
Rosen is pissed because Trump isn’t influenced by the media.

One of the newer parts
of that system is fact-checking, but this is also a practice with a premise.
The premise is that fact-checking will have some shaming effect on the kind of
behavior it calls out. Notice I said “some.” While all candidates (including Hillary Clinton) will avoid
inconvenient facts, make dubious claims or even lie at times if they think they
can get away with it, they normally change behavior when a statement has been
widely debunked. They may not admit they were wrong, but they will stop
repeating the unsupportable claim, or alter it to make it more plausible.
That’s what a “check” is supposed to be: it constrains a candidates’s power to
distort the public dialogue.

By now it’s moving into the open. ‘Trump refuses to obey
us.’

Trump shatters this
premise. As FactCheck.org put
it: “He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false
claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong.” Said
Glenn Kessler, The Post’s Fact Checker columnist: “What’s unusual
about Trump is he’s a leading candidate and he seems to have no interest in
getting important things factually correct.”

If you were a man from
Mars reading this, you’d never guess that “fact checking” has led to great
controversy, with the “fact checkers” frequently called wrong. This is definite dishonesty. Rosen certainly
knows about this, and ignores it.

Under conditions like
these, fact-checking may still be worthwhile, but not because it has any
shaming effect on the candidate. In fact, it could even be useful to Trump in
whipping up resentment against the media, a key part of his appeal. My point is
this: When the assumptions underneath a practice collapse, the ethics of that
practice may shift as well.

So, if they can’t
prevent Trump from saying things they don’t like, they’ll drop the pretense of
honesty.

Traditionally,
journalists have called out untruths. Here they may have to explain how
untruths are foundational to a candidacy. Traditionally, journalists have
thought it “ethical” not to worry about the consequences of election coverage:
as long as it was truthful, accurate and newsworthy, all was well. Here they
may have to worry that their checking actions have no effect, and regroup
around that discovery.

You may recall from a
few paragraphs ago that ‘fact checking’ is “One of the newer parts of that
system”. Now it appears to be something traditional. I have a feeling that
Rosen isn’t aware of his own contradiction here.

Then he goes on to say
that “traditionally”, journalists only concentrated on whether their coverage
was “truthful, accurate, and newsworthy.” If it was, “all was well.” Being
truthful, accurate, and newsworthy has no necessary correlation with
influencing a candidate’s behavior. He’s trying to put across the idea that “truthful,
accurate” reportage automatically controlled candidates. A dubious claim.

But what’s really
interesting, and revealing is the sneer quotes around “ethical.” He’s telling
us that journalistic ethics has always been a sham. Major blunder there, Rosen.

One of the assumptions
of campaign coverage was that candidates would never use their huge platforms
to spread malicious rumors and unreliable
information for which they have no proof: Too risky, too ugly. Trump has
crashed that premise too. When called out on his rumormongering, he
just says: Hey, it’s out there already. For journalists, this changes the
practice of giving the candidate a broadcast platform. Just by granting that
platform you may be participating in a misinformation campaign. Are you sure
you know what you’re doing?

We’re now into the
realm of fantasy again. Think of LBJ’s notorious “daisy
ad”. Think of what most reporters claim Joe McCarthy did. Rosen is just
lying here.

Imagine a candidate who
wants to increase public
confusion about where
he stands on things so that voters give up on trying to stay informed and
instead vote with raw emotion. Under those conditions, does asking “Where do
you stand, sir?” serve the goals of journalism, or does it enlist the
interviewer in the candidate’s chaotic plan?

Have voters every made their choices on anything but “raw
emotion.” Many psychologists would deny that idea. And as noted before,
journalists can’t tell the
public what the candidate will do in office. All attempts to do that are
opinion masquerading as fact.

Asking the candidate “
‘Where do you stand, sir?’ ” is enough if you’re a “reporter,” giving the
readers facts. It’s not enough if you’re an advocate trying to influence the
election.

I know what you’re
thinking, journalists: “What do you want us to do? Stop covering a major party
candidate for president? That would be irresponsible.” True. But this reaction
short-circuits intelligent debate. Beneath every common practice in election
coverage there are premises about how candidates will behave. I want you to
ask: Do these still apply? Trump isn’t behaving like a normal candidate; he’s
acting like an unbound one. In response, journalists have to become less
predictable themselves. They have to come up with novel responses. They have to
do things they have never done. They may even have to shock us.

They may need to
collaborate across news brands in ways they have never known. They may have to
call Trump out with a forcefulness unseen before. They may have to risk the
breakdown of decorum in interviews and endure excruciating awkwardness. Hardest
of all, they will have to explain to the public that Trump is a special case,
and the normal rules do not apply.

And there it is.
Journalists may have to get blatantly open about stopping Trump.

The most important
thing here is that Rosen is probably mostly ‘honest’ in this piece. He probably
doesn’t realize how many dubious assumptions and outright impossibilities he’s
advocating as fact here. But increasingly, the public does.